A Raisin in the Sun (2008) (TV)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Kenny Leon

Writers (WGA):

Paris Qualles (teleplay)
Lorraine Hansberry (play)

Release Date:

25 February 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An African-American family struggles with poverty, racism, and inner conflict as they strive for a better way of life. Based on the play by Lorraine Hansberry.

Plot Keywords:

African American | Working Class Family | Mother Daughter Relationship | Family Relationships | Mother Son Relationship

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs	...	Walter Lee Younger (as Sean Combs)
Sanaa Lathan	...	Beneatha Younger
Audra McDonald	...	Ruth Younger
Phylicia Rashad	...	Lena Younger
Justin Martin	...	Travis Younger
Bill Nunn	...	Bobo
David Oyelowo	...	Joseph Asagai
Ron C. Jones	...	Willy Harris
Sean Patrick Thomas	...	George Murchison
John Stamos	...	Carl Lindner
Sandi Ross	...	Earline Johnson
Rudy Webb	...	Mr Johnson
Martin Roach	...	Walter Lee Sr
Rosemary Dunsmore	...	Mrs. Arnold
Paul Stephen	...	Mr. Arnold

Runtime:

131 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

South Korea:All | Argentina:Atp | Singapore:PG | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Sony Pictures Television

Trivia:

TV version of the Tony award-winning 2004 play revival, with same director and most of the lead-cast: Kenny Leon, Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs , Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and Bill Nunn.

Goofs:

Continuity: When they are packing up the apartment, Momma is working on putting sticks around a small plant to protect it to wrap it. The number and location of the sticks are not in sync with the timing.

Quotes:

Asagai: There is something wrong when all the dreams of a household depend on a man dying.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dreams Worth While: The Journey of 'A Raisin in the Sun' (2008) (V)

Individual's transformation is the theme of this adaptation

It is said that an author must have a measured amount of distance (in terms of time) from her subject matter before she can write about it. This is to give her time to digest and let the the incident settle in her mind and emotion so that she may do justice to her work. Lorraine Hansberry's work was written in the 1950's at the height of urban white discrimination and censorship against blacks. This adaption is done some 50 years later at a time when the arts are freer to touch on sensitive issues and at a vantage point from which we can evaluate the white American mindset and value system and how it has played itself out over the course of the last 50 years.

Lena Younger is the wise matriarch of a black household residing in an apartment in the urban black section of Chicago in the 1950's. The family is blessed to be humbled and to have a loving and trusting relationships within the household. The well-being of the household is shattered by the expectation and subsequent arrival of a small fortune, a $10,000 life insurance payment to Lena. The expectation of the money is seen as seed money by Lena's son, Walter Lee. Walter Lee has a dead-end job, a chauffeur working for a snobbish white boss. The expectation of the money spawns Walter Lee's imagination as seed money to achieve economic freedom through a business of his own. Berneatha, Lena's daughter, is an artsy, spontaneous type person who looks forward towards using the money to finance her education to become a doctor, a technical discipline. Ruth, Walter Lee's wife, is expecting and sees any additional money as just another way to get by. Lena would like to use the money to provide for the practical future needs of the household and doesn't personally need any funds for herself. The story points out how each of the mentioned character's self-interest agenda, as shaped by the American value system of the time and still applies today, is pursued at the expense of destabilizing the family as result of the $10,000. The money becomes the distraction that takes attention and gratitude away from the most important of family fortunes: the gift of humbleness and the appreciation of the simplicity that harmonized, and lent contentment to the household for all those years before the subject of money ever came up.

The social commentary is that America, to a black person and other minorities, is a land of barriers. The system presents barriers to blacks and other minorities who genuinely just want to fulfill their life's purpose, contribute their talents to society and only ask to make a decent living at that. Money or capital is a way to break through these barriers to enter a profession (doctor), business (liquor store) or to retire. The ironic twist is that the very barriers established by the white people to oppress minorities provides for the very education that nurtures character, humbleness and eventually wisdom. You can see that in the genuine, and heartfelt performance by the actors in this movie who dramatize the sensitive social issues covered by Hansberry's work some 50 years later. With a distance in time of 50 years, it can be said that this sincere, from the heart interpretation of Hansberry's work truly does justice to her intended message.